shibui…

“Shibui” – the Japanese word for roughness,
beyond which lies a hidden beauty.
There are some inner implications to this.
Shibui is never a beauty displayed by the artist for the viewer –
it is a beauty of inner roughness that requires the viewer
to draw the beauty from the piece itself.
This demands a tone, a mood, a touch, a background.
Yanagi thus speaks of a pervasive religious flavour
of modesty, restraint and inwardness –
an aesthetic based upon simple naturalness
and reverence.
The soul of art and the human spirit thus meet
in a dance of mutual intrigue.
It is a beautiful thing.